GOD'S SEAL OR SATAN'S MARK?
Kevin D. Paulson
I. Two Signs of Loyalty
The book of Revelation reveals two signs of loyalty, which will distinguish God's people from God's enemies at the end of human history.
One of these is called the mark of the beast:
Rev. 13:16:
"And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads."
The other is called the seal of God:
Rev. 7:2-3:
"And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying,
"Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads."
Notice the different ways in which the seal and the mark are received.
The mark of the beast is received either in the forehead or the hand. By contrast, the seal of God is received only in the forehead. Why is this? Because the hand may at times be forced, but the mind can never be.
Now you’ll hear a lot of theories these days about what in fact is the mark of the beast. But again, what interests us in these meetings is what in fact the Bible teaches, not what so many have speculated.
II. A Breach in the Law
Those who break God's law are sometimes described in the Bible as having made a "breach" in a protective wall.
Psalm 106:23:
"Therefore He said that He would destroy them, had not Moses His chosen stood before Him in the breach, to turn away His wrath, lest He should destroy them."
According to the New Testament, those belonging to Christ now constitute spiritual Israel:
Gal. 3:29:
"And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."
Rom. 2:29:
"But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God."
Consider this when we read the following passage:
Eze. 13:3,5:
"Thus saith the Lord God, Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing! . . . Ye have not gone up into the gaps (same word as breach), neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord."
Not only does the New Testament identify the house of Israel as the church (Gal. 3:29; Rom. 2:29); it identifies the "day of the Lord" as the second coming of Christ (I Thess. 5:2; II Peter 3:10).
God's final judgments are the focus here.
Turning back to Ezekiel, what do these false prophets do that the Lord is talking about?
Eze. 13:10:
"They lead My people astray, saying, 'peace,' when there is no peace, and because, when a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash" (NIV).
Instead of closing up the breach in the wall, thus strengthening it to stand in the day of the Lord, these false prophets produce a flimsy counterfeit.
What will happen to those who produce this counterfeit?
Eze. 13:11,13:
"Say unto them which daub it (the wall) with untempered mortar (whitewash), that it shall fall: there shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, O great hailstones, shall fall: and a stormy wind shall rend it. . . .
"Therefore thus saith the Lord God: I will even rend it with a stormy wind in My fury; and there shall be an overflowing shower in Mine anger, and great hailstones in My fury to consume it."
These great hailstones are mentioned in the book of Revelation.
Rev. 16:21:
"And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, for the plague thereof was exceeding great."
According to Revelation, these and the other seven last plagues will fall "upon the men which had the mark of the beast" (Rev. 16:2).
Thus both the books of Ezekiel and Revelation describe how God's wrath, through falling hailstones and other plagues, will destroy the flimsy wall they have built (Eze. 13:14-15).
Isaiah uses similar language describing Israel's disobedience to God:
Isa. 30:12-13:
"Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon: therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly in an instant."
The symbolic beasts we have studied place their trust in oppression. The Religious Right in America today places its trust in oppression. When persuasion fails, force is used.
Eze. 22:24,26-28:
"Son of man, say unto her (Jerusalem), Thou art the land that is not cleansed, nor rained upon in the day of indignation. . . .
"Her priests have violated My law, and have profaned Mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they showed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from My Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.
“Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain.
“And her prophets have daubed them with untempered mortar (whitewash), seeing vanity, and divining lies among them, saying, Thus saith the Lord God, when the Lord hath not spoken."
Four points deserve notice in these verses:
1. The events described happen in "the day of indignation," another term for the "day of the Lord," which the New Testament identifies with Jesus' second coming.
2. The religious leaders described here make no distinction between sacred and common things.
3. The Sabbath is being ignored.
4. People are attaching God's authority to things God never said.
Eze. 22:30:
"And I sought for a man among them, who should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap (breach) before Me in the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none."
But the Bible tells us this condition won't last forever. God WILL find a people who will repair the breach!
Isa. 58:12-14:
"And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.
"If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; a call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words;
"Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."
We see in these verses, as in Ezekiel, that failing to distinguish the sacred from the common, especially regarding the Sabbath, has much to do with the breach made in God's law.
Thus when we read in Isaiah of being "repairers of the breach," this is tied directly to honoring the Sabbath.
III. The Mark and the Number
The Bible not only mentions the mark of the beast; it mentions a decree regarding the ability to buy and sell. It also mentions a mysterious number.
Rev. 13:17-18:
“And that no one might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
“Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.”
One of the Pope’s titles is Vicarius Filii Dei—Vicar of the Son of God. Look at the Roman numerical value of this title below:
V - 5 F D - 500
I - 1 I – 1 E
C – 100 L – 50 I - 1
A I – 1 ___
R I – 1 501
I – 1 ___
U – 5 53 Total: 666
S
___
112
IV. Two Classes, Two Signs
We see now from Scripture that two classes will exist at the end of time--those who cover the breach in God's law with whitewash, and those who seek to repair this breach.
We begin to see now the symbolic nature of both the seal of God and the mark of the beast.
In ancient times a royal seal contained a ruler's name, his title, and his dominion.
In modern times this is true as well.
Revelation speaks several times of how God's end-time people will keep His commandments.
Rev. 12:17:
"And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."
Rev. 14:7,12:
"Fear God, and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment is come, and worship Him that made heaven and earth and the sea and the fountains of waters. . . . Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."
Which of the Ten Commandments speak of God as the Creator of heaven and earth?
Ex. 20:8-11:
"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
“Six days shall thou labor and do all thy work,
“But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work: thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates.
“For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."
No wonder the Bible speaks elsewhere of the Sabbath as the sign of loyalty to God.
Ex. 31:16-17:
"Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.
"It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested, and was refreshed."
And who does Israel now include, according to the New Testament:
Rom. 2:29:
“But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God.”
Gal. 3:29:
“And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
Elsewhere in Scripture the Sabbath is also called a sign between God and His people:
Eze. 20:12:
"Moreover also I gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they may know that I am the Lord that sanctify them."
But what about the mark of the beast?
We saw from Ezekiel how mingling the sacred and the common regarding the Sabbath, along with other transgressions, has produced a breach in the law of God.
Any substitution of a man-made rest day for the one ordained by God at creation would certainly fall under the condemnation Ezekiel talks about.
Remember:
Eze. 22:28:
"And her prophets have daubed them with untempered mortar, seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord God, when the Lord hath not spoken."
If the Sabbath is the sign of our loyalty, the seal of God, it follows logically that a counterfeit rest-day, which God never commanded, will in the end be the sign of disloyalty.
Listen to these words from one Roman Catholic leader:
"Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change (of the Sabbath) is her act: . . . And the act is a MARK of her ecclesiastical power and authority in religious matters."
H.F. Thomas, assistant to Cardinal Gibbons, quoted in The Catholic Mirror, Sept. 23, 1893.
Rev. 17:4:
"And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand, full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication."
And who, do you remember, does she commit fornication with?
Rev. 17:2:
"With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication."
Rev. 13:16-18:
"And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
"And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”
One point needs to be clarified beyond misunderstanding.
No one now has the mark of the beast or the seal of God.
Eze. 9:4:
"And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry for the abominations that be done in the midst thereof."
This is an end-time passage, and we see here that the sealing of the faithful doesn't occur until the judgment begins.
- The Final Test
Rev. 13:15:
“And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.”
Does this verse remind us of a similar event in Bible history?
Remember the story in Daniel 3 of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who wouldn’t bow to Nebuchadnezzar’s image in Daniel 3?
Just as Adam and Eve confronted two trees in the Garden of Eden as respective signs of loyalty and disloyalty to God (Gen. 2:9), so modern man confronts two days of worship--one designed by God, the other designed by man.
And once again, as in the days of the apostles, God's true people will be compelled to declare:
Acts 5:29:
"We ought to obey God rather than men."
Eze. 20:12:
"Moreover also I gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they may know that I am the Lord that sanctify them."
"Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change (of the Sabbath) was her act. . . . And this act is a MARK of her ecclesiastical power and authority in religious matters."
H.F. Thomas, assistant to Cardinal Gibbons, The Catholic Mirror, Sept. 23, 1895.
The choice is ours.
The commandments of God, or the commandments of men?
Where will we stand in that day?